


Involuntary

by eerian_sadow



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Body Horror, Emotional Trauma, Gen, Physical Trauma, community: TranformersForever, involuntary body modification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 22:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3994720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being kidnapped was only the first horror the Decepticons had in store for Prowl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Involuntary

**Author's Note:**

> written for TransformersForever’s February contest on deviantArt. It’s not as detailed as the fic I had originally planned in my head, but that would have ended up going waaaaaaay over the 5000 word limit. So I did reformatting fic lite and have every intention of going back and expanding on _everything_ at some point in the future.

Title: Involuntary  
Universe: G1  
Rating: PG  
Warnings: involuntary reformatting  
Characters: Prowl, Soundwave, Mirage, Jazz, Optimus Prime, Ratchet  
Notes: written for TransformersForever’s February contest on deviantArt. It’s not as detailed as the fic I had originally planned in my head, but that would have ended up going waaaaaaay over the 5000 word limit. So I did reformatting fic lite and have every intention of going back and expanding on _everything_ at some point in the future.

many thanks to [](http://evvj.livejournal.com/profile)[**evvj**](http://evvj.livejournal.com/) for her beta work on this piece.

this is the piece i referred to last night as the lite version of this story. the key events here will be the same when i do the re-write, but when i get to it, the other story will still be fresh and different from this piece.

 

_To call this battle heated would be an understatement._

_Something had driven the Decepticons into a frenzy and they attacked with even less remorse or care to personal injury than usual. The Autobots were finding it difficult to hold their ground, and were making no headway at all in turning the tide of the battle in their favor. If they were lucky, everything would end in a draw today, with both sides too exhausted to continue fighting._

_Prowl scanned over the battle, trying to find some pattern to the Decepticon attack. Any weakness would be Primus sent, as the Autobot troops were wearing down more quickly than their enemies, and it would have to come soon._

_He was so wrapped up in his scanning of the ground troops that he never noticed the Seeker drop in behind him._

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

He honestly had not thought the Seekers up to the challenge of their assignment, but holding them back from the front lines had apparently given the Autobots enough of a false sense of security that they never even bothered to look up once the battle was in full swing. Thundercracker had dropped in, sedated Prowl and flown off with the tactician before any of the Autobot sentries knew he had been there.

Once the kidnapping had been discovered, the Prime’s rage had sent the Autobots into frothing madness, but the Decepticons that had been on the field of battle had been nothing more than cannon fodder. Only a few highly advanced drones had been sacrificed to gain the Autobots’ greatest war asset.

Soundwave checked over the black and white mech lying on the customized medical berth in his workshop, triple checking to ensure that Prowl had been properly shut down and his memory files backed up. If the mech was going to be useful for their cause, he had to be kept intact.

In processor and spark, at least.

Once he was assured that everything was as ready as it could be, Soundwave turned to the plans he had laid out next to the tactician.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_Prowl tried to call out the moment he felt the neural block attach to his plating, but his systems refused to respond. The device had worked quickly—too quickly; it had to be upgraded technology—and not even his optic shutters would obey his commands to close._

_He strained against the block, trying desperately to move as a strong arm wrapped around his waist._

_“Wonder what he wants with you,” Thundercracker said softly. Then there was the sharp pinch of something being injected into his fuel lines and Prowl blacked out as they took to the sky._

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Prowl came online slowly, feeling more than a little hazy. His body felt strangely light and his systems were giving him status readings that were well outside his normal operating parameters. Slowly, he unshuttered his optics to look around his surroundings.

The tactician was unsurprised to see the purple walls of the _Nemesis_ fill his vision. It was only logical that the Decepticons would take him to their base if they had gone to the trouble of kidnapping him. He was not, however, prepared for the sight of his own chassis—partially dismantled and missing large portions of the outer plating—laying on a medical berth next to him.

With a yelp that was strangely animalistic, he flailed and attempted to back away from the greyed out body. His limbs wouldn’t respond to his commands properly though, and he simply scrabbled along the surface of the medical berth for purchase. He whimpered—a high, whining sound that his previous vocal processor would never have been capable of making—and steeled himself to look at the body he currently inhabited.

His horror and shock deepened when he realized he had been reformatted. Where he had previously had hands and feet, he now had paws that were tipped with claws long enough to tear into another mech’s plating. He was small now, no larger than Ravage or Steeljaw, and quadrupedal. As he looked down the side of his body, he could see a view window and data spools settled in between the joints of his front and rear legs.

Soundwave had taken him and reformatted him into a cassettecon.

He tried to whisper a denial, but all that came out of his vocalizer was a sorrowful whimper.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_Once his rage had been spent on the drones that had distracted the Autobot army long enough for Prowl to be taken, Optimus dropped into an inconsolable sorrow. It was no secret among the Autobots how close a friendship the Prime and his head tactician had, and Prowl’s loss was a crippling blow for Optimus as a mech and as a leader._

_But as their leader mourned, special operations made plans._

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Prowl was not even left the dignity of his name.

They called him Strategy, as if that would distract him from the memories they had left intact or convince him that he was no longer an Autobot. At first, he had growled when Soundwave or one of the cassettecons had called him that, but after several sharp blows to the back of his head—more than one hard enough to force his processor into a reboot sequence—he reigned in that impulse. He did not want his identity stripped from him, but he had to be conscious and cognizant to plan his escape.

Megatron gave him a pleased leer when Soundwave presented Prowl in the throne room an Earth day after waking up in his new body. The Decepticon leader added insult to the injury the communications specialist had already done to him by petting him like the canine he now resembled.

“Excellent work, Soundwave.” Megatron moved his hand so that he was stroking along the side of Prowl’s face. “He will make an excellent tool, once we’ve broken him to his new life.”

Prowl disagreed; he would never be broken to be being a Decepticon tool. With a snarl, he turned his head and bit Megatron’s arm, hard enough to shred plating and draw energon. He ran from the throne room, with the other cassettecons in pursuit.

He thought he saw Starscream smirk at him as he ducked into an airshaft.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 _Mirage crept through the_ Nemesis _on silent feet, searching all the places they could have reasonably hidden Prowl. He had started at the brig, but expanded into other locations when he realized the tactician wasn’t in any of the holding cells. He had been searching for a full day so far, but the Decepticons had hidden their tactician very well. There were no logical places on the ship left to search, and so he started in on the illogical ones._

_Carefully, he stepped into the corridor outside the officers’ quarters. If Soundwave were around, he would be in a great deal of trouble very quickly but he had to know if Prowl had been secreted in any of these rooms._

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Prowl tried not to move as the door to Soundwave’s quarters opened. He would be noticed in the airshaft if he moved—the black and white coloring they had allowed him to keep showed up too plainly against the purple walls—and hoped that the telepath wasn’t returning. He had avoided detection so far because they hadn’t thought to look for him her yet but there was only so long this airshaft would be safe.

He suppressed a whimper when no one stepped through the door and crushed his hopes down. The intruder could be Mirage, but it could just as easily be one of the Decepticons attempting to trick him out of hiding. Prowl watched the room like a hawk instead, searching for the tells that would identify Mirage if the spy was in the room.

“Oh, no, Prowl.” The tactician’s spark soared when he heard the spy’s involuntary exclamation when he saw Prowl’s body. With Mirage in the base, he had a much greater hope of escape.

The noblemech dropped his invisibility cloak to pick up the tactician’s body. Prowl started battering at the grate over the airshaft, trying to break into the room so that the spy would take him too. Mirage looked up at him in shock, fear written plainly across his face.

As they stared at each other, the door to Soundwave’s quarters opened again.

Mirage and Prowl exploded into motion at the sound, the spy bringing his cloak back up and the tactician forcing his way through the grating. Soundwave raised his heat cannon, but couldn’t track either of them in time to fire before Mirage had slammed him out of the way.

They ran for whatever exit Mirage had planned for this excursion with the ops agent in the lead and Prowl following him by scent.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

They were both battered when they returned to the _Ark_. The cassettecons had caught up to them not far from Mirage’s exit point and they had been forced to fight them off. Mirage was missing an optic courtesy of Laserbeak and had multiple dents and scratches courtesy of Rumble and Frenzy. Prowl had faced down Ravage and Buzzsaw and had left the encounter missing an ear and with three parallel gashes down his side.

But they were functional as they limped back inside.

Jazz relieved Mirage of Prowl’s body as the noble stepped through the door. “Oh, Prowl. What did they do to you?”

Prowl whimpered, wishing that Soundwave had left him _some_ way to be able to communicate with his comrades.

“I’m sorry,” Mirage replied. “I was discovered before I had a chance to find out.”

Prowl whimpered again and pawed at the noble’s leg.

“Who’s that?” Jazz asked, giving Prowl a pointed look. “I know I didn’t authorize you to take prisoners.”

The spy shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t have time for questions when we were escaping. But, brand or no brand, he wanted out of the _Nemesis_ as badly as I did.”

The saboteur sighed. “Not something we needed to deal with right now. Come on. You two need repairs and I have to figure out how to tell Optimus about Prowl.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The Prime stared at Ratchet, pain written clearly across his face. “He’s gone?”

“I’m sorry, Optimus.” The medic rested a weary hand across his optics. “His processor, spark and laser core are all gone. I don’t know what they did with it, but Prowl is not here.”

Prowl whimpered from the berth he was resting on. If someone would just plug a data cable into him, they would know what happened.

“What do we do now?” Optimus asked tiredly.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Steeljaw stared at Prowl and Prowl stared back. Blaster watched them both for a moment before shaking his head and turning away.

“He can’t have been made on Cybertron, Jazz,” the communication specialist said. “We’ve had control of the space bridge for the last three months and I know all of Soundwave’s cassettes as well as I know my own after all these vorns. He has to have been made on Earth.”

“And how did Soundwave manage to get a spark then?” Jazz gave Prowl a thoughtful look. “Unless he’s a drone. Would explain why he can’t talk.”

“Most of us barely bother to make drone models look more than barely functional. Soundwave made this guy look like a timber wolf.” Blaster shook his head. “He’s sentient. It’s just a question of how sentient.”

“And you won’t know that without linking up.” The saboteur frowned. “I don’t like it, but we have to know what’s going on. At the first hint of a virus, you pull back.”

“I will. We’ve lost too much already.”

Prowl looked away from Steeljaw as Blaster approached. He sat quietly as the communication specialist located his data port and plugged the link cable in. He deactivated all his firewalls when Blaster sent a tentative inquiry and let the red mech have full access to his systems.

Blaster gasped.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Optimus clutched the cassette _bot_ to his chest plates so tightly that their respective joints creaked.

“I don’t know if we can reverse the reformatting,” Ratchet told them softly, not really wanting to interrupt their reunion. “I’ll have to fabricate a lot of parts, including a new spark casing.”

“Just do your best, Ratchet.” The Prime’s voice was flooded with joy. “If it isn’t possible, we’ll adapt. We always do.”

 _Yes, we will._ Prowl relaxed into his friend’s embrace contentedly.

 

 


End file.
